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BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF MYSTERY. 

' ' We have the greatest pleasure in recommending the elegant and 
laborious work of Mr. Dendy." — Times. 

" Drawn with fancy and elegance." — Athen^um. 



PSYCHE: 

^ ^mamst an % §irt|j mxo pilgrimage of ©fought. 

THE 

BEAUTIFUL ISLETS OE BRITAINE. 

Illustrate bg 45 WaatttnU. 

We are delighted to join Mr. Dendy in his trip."— Atheh\&um. 



THE 



ISLETS 



THE CHANNEL. 



THE ISLETS 



CHANNEL. 



By WALTER COOPER DENDY, 

PAST PRESIDENT OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OP LONDON; 

CONSULTING SURGEON TO THE ROYAL INFIRMARY FOR CHILDREN AND WOMEN, 

AUTHOR OF ''THE PHILOSOPHY OF MYSTERY," 

"THE BEAUTIFUL ISLETS OF BRITAINE," " PSYCHE," ETC. 



: A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." — Endymion. 







LONDON: 

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, AND ROBERTS. 
1858. 



\00"&2. 



7-r 



• vJ 



4"D3 



LONDON : 

SAVILL AND EDWAKDS, PBINTEKS, 

CHANDOS STREET. 



ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL. 



From Southampton (Mail), Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 
11 P.M. 

Fare from London, ll. lis. and 11. Is. 
„ „ Southampton, ll. Is. and 14s. 

From the Islets on same days, at 8 a.m. 

Other Boats, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. 

Eeturn from the Islets, hour uncertain. 

Fare from London, 11. 5s. 6d., 17s., and lis. 6d. Steward, 2s. and Is. 
„ „ Southampton, 16s. and lis. 

Half-fare for children from two to twelve. 

Return tickets, 1 Month, 45s. and 35s. 

From Weymouth, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 8 a.m. 

Return Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at 7 A.M. 

Other Boats, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at half- 
past 8 A.M. 

Return Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, at half-past 

7 A.M. 

Fare from London, ll. lis. and ll. Is. 

Boat from Jersey to St. Malo's, in 3 to 5 hours, Tuesday about 
noon. 

Boat to Granville on Saturday. 
Excursions from Jersey to Sark and Alderney and round the Islet. 



In Guernsey, chiefly French money : Jersey, chiefly British. 
Chief circulation in Island one-pound notes. 12 British shillings 
equal to 13 Jersey. 



Hotels of all grades. Lodgings in town-houses and garden-villas. 
Poultry and Fish cheap, especially in Guernsey. Tobacco and Tea 
moderate. Milk plentiful, even in many cottages. 

Wine, per doz. : — Port, 18s. to 40s. Sherry, 18s. to 36s. Madeira, 
50s. Marsala, 15s. Claret, 16s. to 75s. Burgundy, 30s. to 55s. 
Champagne, 30s. to 60s. Mountain, 20s. Hock and Mosella, 35s. 
to 55s. Muscat, 25s. Chablis and Barsac, 20s. Sauterne, 12s. to 15s. 
Grave, 18s. Champagne Brandy, 49s. 

Horses, 6s. or 7s. a-day. One-horse carriage, 8s. Two-horse 
carriage, 12s. to 15s. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

LA PENDENTE, ALDEENEY . . . ,. 7 

ALDEENEY FEOM BEEHOU 8 

LA FOEET, GUEENSEY 15 

MUEL HUET 16 

LE CEEUX HAVEN, SEEK 21 

LES AUTELETS 25 

LA COUPE 29 

POINT VIGNETTE 31 

ELIZABETH CASTLE, JEESEY 37 

ST. beelade's BAY 42 

ST. beelade's chuech 43 

CLIFFS NEAE GEEVE LA LECQ 47 

GUEENSEY AND SEEK, FEOM JEESEY 50 

CEOMLECH 52 

MOUNT OEGUEIL CASTLE 52 

LA TOUE D'AUVEEGNE 55 



THE 



ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL. 



It was in the tenth century that the French King, 
Charles IV., granted to Eollo the Pirate, who had 
married his daughter, the Dukedom of Normandy, 
together with the islets of" the wide bay of St. Michael's ;" 
a guerdon for his conversion to Christianity. When 
William, the descendant of Eollo, won the field of 
Hastings, the islets became an appanage of Britain, by 
the right of being conquered, and so they remain to this 
day politically subject to Britain, although geographically 
a parcel of France. The discovery of Eoman, Celtic, 
Eunic, and Gallic relics and coins, and the ruins of 
temple and fortress throughout the islets, reflect their 
history on the olden time. Jersey, it seems, was the isolated 
retreat of Ambiorix, a rebel to Julius Caesar, if we rightly 
interpret the sixth book of the " Commentaries." These 
Norman rocks, however, have not been held unchallenged. 
The French descents date from Henry I., through the 
reigns of John — who established the "Boyal Courts," 
on a visit to the isles — of Edward I., Edward III., Henry 
VII., Edward VI., George II., and George III., but they 
were all failures, although Du Guesclin, who was com- 

B 



2 THE ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL. 

missioned by Charles the Wise, seized and held Mount 
Orgueil Castle. In the dilemma of " the Koses," the 
Norman Pierre de Breze assumed the title of " Lord of 
the Isles" until the blending of these royal emblems. 
The last attempt was on Jersey, in 1779-80, by the Duke 
of Nassau, when Pierson fell in its successful defence. 

During the joyous months of summer and autumn, 
this fair group of islets will become more and more 
attractive as the facility of communication increases, 
especially as they possess the elements both of the salu- 
brious and the beautiful in a very high degree. Soft 
and health-breathing gales are wafted along their very 
lovely and bloom-spangled valleys ; they are belted by 
magnificent cliffs, indented by sheltered coves and deep 
and darksome caverns, and by outlying rocks of the most 
fantastic forms, and they are enriched, moreover, by quaint 
and antique structures, emblazoned in remote history and 
romantic legend. 

There is a charm, also, in feeling that they are our own, 
and that the genial atmosphere and the luscious fruits 
and the light wines of France may be so perfectly enjoyed 
without the inquisitorial annoyance of the system of 
Passe-porte. 

There are hotels and lodging-houses adapted to the 
most economic purse, the direction to which may be 
learned on board; and the markets will supply all the 
delicacies an island appetite can desire. For the votaries 
of health and joy the islets are thus exquisitely fashioned 
by the bounty of the Creator, and the invalid and con- 
valescent may with confidence adopt them as a resort, 
especially as the facility of sailing and boating on genial 



THE ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL. 3 

waters offers delightful recreation without the exhaustion 
of fatigue and the consequent evil of reaction. 

The islets are fanned hy southern breezes, yet the 
tidal currents in their rock-hound channels, often running 
seven knots in the hour, foam over the breakers in very 
wild magnificence. The floods of the Race of Alderney, 
Les Has de Blansharde, between that islet and Cape 
la Hogue, and even those of the Sivinge between the islet 
and the porphyritic rock of Bevliou are proverbial, and 
in very foul weather the boat may roll and ship heavy 
seas in the passage of the Ortac within the crags of the 
Caskets. 

Through the Race run the boats from the Thames : 
those from Southampton chiefly through the Swinge or 
the Ortac : those from Weymouth direct in the open 
channel to Porte St. Pierre in Guernsey, the most rapid 
and pacific course for the languid and the delicate. 



The geologic arrangement of the islets is in three 
pairs. Jersey and Guernsey are inclined planes, shelving 
from magnificent cliffs to a flat beach studded with rock- 
lets ; Jersey trending southward, Guernsey northward ; 
the granite rocks of Jersey enclosing one-half, those of 
Guernsey one -third. 

Alderney and Serque are table-lands, raised on bases 
of rock ; Alderney irregularly belted — Serque completely 
framed. Herm and Jedthou are mounds isolated by the 
waves. Satellite blocks and ledges are lying in profusion 
in the channels, some overwhelmed at high water. These 

b 2 



4 THE ISLETS OF THE CHANNEL. 

groups are exquisitely bold in outline and deep and rich 
in colour, from the incessant play of wind and wave, the 
pencils and the washes with which elemental art is still 
heightening the wildness and the beauty of the creation. 
The valleys and downs are prolific in bloom, and flowers 
of the brightest and deepest colours adorn the more 
cultivated parterres. In the deep, deep caverns, with 
which the cliff and the bays are darkened, sport in their 
almost sacred solitude the acephalse and the actiniae. In 
the watery bosom of the cave, the male syngnathus may 
nurse its infant brood in safety, and the delicate comatula 
unfold its feathery tentaculee. In the hollow cups scooped 
in the granite and glittering with brine, the daisy actinia, 
that Clytie of the rocks so loving of the light, may un- 
fold her enamoured florets to the sun. Then what 
profusion and what variety in form and colour of deep 
sea-weeds are thrown by the billows on the pebbles and 
the sand; a spot richer both in these cast-away treasures 
of the deep and in the living botany of the ocean, may 
not be found than the caverned bays of eccentric Serque. 



ALDERNEY: 

AURENE — AURIGMA AURIMA — ARENO — ABRENO — AURNE /tt/3/y^, 

ORIGNI AURINiE INSULA ISLE OF THE CAPE 

ISLAND OF ST. ANNE. 

This lies nearest to the shore of Albion, within its 
belt of shoals, and difficult of access in stormy weather, 
even in its new haven of Braye la Ville, or Brayer. The 
access was still more perilous in Crab Bay, or in the 
more ancient port of Longy. We are landed. How 
quiet the people, how social and primitive, how wedded 
to old customs. It is probable, however, that in a few 
years the harbour of Braye will display a busier scene, 
much of the sterile land of the Giffoine be fertilized, the 
petty farms multiplied, and the treasures of its fisheries 
realized : but Alderney will never be admired, for dul- 
ness reigns around, and the sea spray seems to excite 
cutaneous maladies, and the salt and fish diet to induce 
dyspepsia. There is, however, with its sterile aspect 
and its dearth of foliage, a prominent and novel character 
in Alderney. About its elevated centre is the quaint 
old ville of St. Anne, possessing a new church (the 
ancient fane being despoiled), a new court house, the 
Government house, the gaol, the female school, and 
chapels of dissent. 



6 ALDERNEV. 

Of the ancient town on the south-eastern coast, of 
which the ohlong granite blocks of Les Rochers, near 
the cemetery, are believed to be the debris, very solemn 
legends are recorded. Its destruction is referred to the 
judgment of the Deity on the crimes of a gang of 
wreckers, who plundered and murdered the crew of a 
Spanish vessel wrecked on the coast. This infliction, 
according to the record, had its parallel in Jersey. 

The Court consists of judge, jurats, attorney and 
solicitor-general, greffier, sheriff, and his depute and 
serjeant. 

The ecclesiastical history is not without interest, and 
there are seriously romantic legends of the mission 
of Geunal, Vignalor, or St. Vignalis, the patron saint of 
Aurigny. He was a scion of a noble family in Bretagne, 
a proselyte of St. Magloire, and he resigned his abbacy 
of Lanclenec, and became a missionary to Sark. From 
thence he wended to Alderney, and converted the catchers 
of fish and the tillers of ground, before this the most 
desperate wreckers in the Channel. 

From the outlying rocks on the eastern height stands 
the ruined castle (La Chatte) of Essex, built, it is said, 
by Robert Devereux, for the detention of his queen. 
Below it, on the lower shore of Longis is a Roman cist, 
noted by Holinshed ; and Castrum Longini. Les murs 
des has, or the Nunnery, is a very antique square, with 
corner towers, constructed with the Roman tiles of the 
dilapidated ville. Here and also at Corbelets were dis- 
covered antique vessels and coins and relics, and monu- 
mental stones of porphyry and sienite. 

On the coast heights there are batteries and watch- 



" tier crtutfLttL $&.->-„ C*sh£&4 t&tefc $***' '& **# *> ieL <#^T 






ALDERNEY. 7 

towers and beacons, and a telegraph for Guernsey, all 
dismantled in time of peace. 

The coast is one of the wildest belts of cliffs and rock- 
lets ; those eastward of a line from Braye to L'Etat are 
of ruddy grit, those westward of porphyry or hornstone. 
The eastern group, more exposed to disintegrating forces, 
assumes the columnar form, or that of hanging blocks, 




as at Pendente ; but the porphyry of the west is of the 
wildest fashion. Between these strata is a narrow black 
belt of hornblende and quartz, running north and south 
across the islet. On the south-west point is La Nashe 
Fourchie, the cones of Les JRochers des Soeurs, and the 
secluded Chaise de I'Emauve, the Lover's Chair, a 
record of the passion of Jacquine Le Mesurier for one 
far lower than herself in rank. Of this romance the 
story and catastrophe are just as interesting as the 
common ran of these love tales. Below the ridge of the 
Giffoine there is the bold Tete de Jugemaine, and the 
fine bays of La Platte Saline and La Clanqtte. On its 
outlying rock is still celebrated on the first Sunday in 



8 ALDERNEY. 

Lent, by youths and maidens, the ancient festa of Les 
Brandons, the wild gambols being peculiar to the islet. 
After dancing in the ring and kisses round, the corps de 
ballet return to Braye in procession, waving aloft their 
blazing firebrands, displaying all the wild gambols of 
Comus. The islet is most exposed ; it is therefore 
bracing, yet the Cape Alctris and other exotics thrive in 
the open air. About Longis and La Clanque a profusion 
of fuel and algce is thrown on the shore. The Haliotis 
and Trochus shells lie on the beach, and myriads of the 
strombiformis on the sterile ground. 

In her course from England, whether in the open 
channel or in the Ortac, the boat closes on the Caskets. 
From the Weymouth course these lie off eastward. The 
water is twenty and thirty fathoms deep around these 
white sand rocks, which are about a mile in circuit, and 
have two landing-places, with steps in the rock, ac- 
cessible in calm weather. The approach is perilous in a 
storm ; and it was off the Caskets that in 1120 Prince 
William, the only son of Henry I., was drowned. The 
platform is walled and surrounded by three light- towers 
at triangular points. The sea block of Ortac and the 
rocklet of Berhou lie between the Caskets and Alderney, 




ALDERNEY. 9 

the latter rock being the resort of the Stormy Petrel, 
the Barbalot, and the burrowing bee, one of the most 
interesting little things in entomology. From this rock 
the peep at Alderney is picturesque. 

We are nearing the little Eussell Channel, and sur- 
rounded by blocklets : another of the sister islets is 
looming in the distance. 



GUERNSEY 



CiESAEEA SAENIA. 



Passing between the point of Vale and Herm, we are 
directly off the harbour of St. Peter's Port, its fort of 
Castle Comet crowning an isolated granite rock, south- 
ward of the pier, which now connects it with the shore, 
and forms the harbour of refuge. The coup d'ceil 
assumes a perfect Norman aspect, and the costume, 
dialect, and manners are in just harmony with the 
scene. The marine quarter of the " town," as it is par 
excellence termed (and indeed there is no other in Guern- 
sey), especially the old church, the hotels, and wine- 
shops, of dark grey stone, with which the quay is lined, 
is perfectly continental. The shops and offices, of 
more modern aspect, compose the streets ; the dwellings 
of the opulent, among which Castle Carey is con- 
spicuous, are chiefly on terraces along the abrupt 
escarpment ; Elizabeth College, the modern church, and 
the Victoria Tower, by the cemetery, on the new ground, 
being the most prominent public objects. The old 
church on the quay, dating about 1120, is crucial, the 
interior being darkened by its massive columns and 
heavy galleries. 

The marble slabs of the fish -market are profusely 



GUERNSEY. 11 

supplied with choice fish — turbot, dorey, and very fine 
Crustacea; and the stalls teem in the season with the 
treasures of Pomona. 

The education at the College is economical, about £12 
per annum ; the cost for living with the Principal not 
exceeding £60. 

The influence of this facility of learning will enlighten 
the minds even of the unlettered islanders, among whom 
there is a prevalent superstition. The belief in witch- 
craft may still be discerned, although it is now two 
centuries since v/omen were tortured, hung, and burned 
under this demoniac creed. 

The scenic quality both of the interior and of the 
eastern and northern coasts of Guernsey is mere pretti- 
ness. On the south, however, from Fermains Bay to 
Eocquaine it is buttressed by some of the most magni- 
ficent rocks in the Channel, the land gradually descend- 
ing from them northward. The coast rocks on the east, 
south-east, south, and south-west, from Saline to 
Eocquaine, are of gneiss, those of Eocquaine are of 
schist, and thence they are granitic. 

A line from Vagon Bay on the west through Catel to 
Amherst cuts the islet into two unequal parts, differing 
in geological character. Much of the bed of the northern 
portion is alluvial ; some, indeed, embanked from the 
sea by General Doyle. The southern is a more elevated 
platform, and consists of a series of undulating hills, and 
sloping bosky lanes, and little glens with rippling run- 
nels, until the highest downs dip at once into the waves 
their magnificent gneiss cliffs, rounding into beautiful 
bays, embossed with outlying rocks, and worn into clefts 



12 GUERNSEY. 

and fissures, or running up into exquisite little dingles. 
This magnificence is confined to the south ; the sea and 
coast views, however, to the east, are finely backed by 
the islets of Herm and Jedthou, and the more distant 
ridge of Serque. 

Guernsey is an easy study ; it may be coasted and 
threaded, and its objects of natural and archaeological 
interest analysed, in four or five days. In calm weather, 
however, the cliff beauty of the islet may be contem- 
plated more perfectly from a boat, surveyed from Fer- 
mains Bay to Les Hanois. 

The coast from Port St. Pierre to St. Sampson is flat, 
and studded with rocklets, on which loads of vraich and 
laminaria and asperococcus are profusely strewn. These 
algae are gathered and dried for fuel, at the legal harvest 
time, in March and July, the harvest home being pro- 
fusely supplied with vraich cakes and bread. The 
digging and blasting of the quarries of black stone, and 
the tiny windmills that drain these excavations, give life 
to the scene as we approach St. Sampson's. 

Martello towers crown several of the brows, and there 
is within very old walls to the left a little remnant now 
styled Ivy Castle. It is not worth the visit, although it 
is a bit of a castle, built by Eobert of Normandy, con- 
temporary with that of Jerbourg. 

We are close to the archaeological gems of the islet, — 
the churches of St. Sampson and Braye la Ville, or du Vol, 
within a mile of each other, at each end of a flat alluvial 
isthmus. The first is dated 1111, its name being derived 
from Sampson, Bishop of St. David's, consecrated 
Bishop of Dol under the Duke of Brittany, and endowed 



GUERNSEY. 13 

with these islets by Childebei't of France. He came to 
Guernsey, and built a chapel here. There are three 
aisles, with massive pillars and Norman arches ; the old 
gallery-loft and the tower are in exquisite antique. It is 
profusely covered by most luxuriant ivy with enormous 
stems. 

The steeple of Braye du Val, dated 1117, is very 
eccentric, immense granitic blocks lying before the 
belfry- do or. 

At low water we cross the harbour of St. Sampson's, 
Vale, or Du Val, on stepping-stones. The Castle on the 
mound was erected as a defence against the incursion of 
the Danes, and then called St. Michael's, or the Castle 
of the Archangel. There is a legend imputing its erec- 
tion chiefly to a band of military monks, who, in a sort 
of holy pilgrimage, made a descent on the islet. 

A Druidical cam lies on the hill, half a mile north- 
ward on the left of the road. There are twelve upright 
and three immense horizontal stones. The largest of 
these, fifteen feet long and a yard thick, rests on four 
uprights, the second only on two, the third on the 
second and the edge of the pit, so that six uprights are 
unoccupied. From this brow there is a perspective view 
of the chief objects in the islet, Alderney lying on the 
horizon to the north-east. 

Forts Doyle and Pembroke are on the northern point 
on either side of Lancresse Bay, the bay of "Anchorage," 
in which the Duke of Normandy landed in a storm, as he 
was sailing over to England to Edward the Confessor. 

The shores and bays are here flat and dull ; as we 
leave the Eace Course and pass Porting er and Long Port, 



14 GUERNSEY. 

the upheaved blocks of gneiss increase in number and 
proportion. In Cobo Bay stands Le Grande Roche ; its 
veins of rose-coloured feldspar are unique. Here and 
there we have picturesque glimpses — one of the flat islet 
of Lihou, once hallowed by a priory built in the reign 
of Henry L, the grouping of cots and walls still in bold 
relief. The outlying rocklets are profuse between Le 
Grand Havre on the north and the bold blocks of Les 
Hanois or Hanoreaux off Pleinmont Point, the west 
corner of the islet ; they completely stud the bays of 
Port du Fer, Saline, Long Point, Great Cobo, Vazon, 
Perelle, Le Rie, Rocquaine, the widest bay in Guernsey. 
It was in Vazon Bay that the Spaniard Yvon de Galles 
descended and fought the battle in which the islander 
Jean de Lesoc performed feats of great valour. The site 
of this conflict is still named La Battaile. 

In contrast to this record of history is a fairy legend. 
In this bay of Vazon was " Les Creux des Fees," a 
cavern haunted by the little people. Why and when and 
how we know not, but they conquered Guernsey ! 

A sterile sameness reigns around Pleinmont Point and 
Mount Herault and Creux Marie, a cavern 200 feet 
deep, and Le Corbiere, until we reach Point la Maye. 
In the vicinity are the old village churches of St Peter 
in the Wood, of the sera of Henry II., 1167, and Torteval, 
still more ancient, of the sera of Henry L, 1 130, which was 
erected by Philip de Carteret and dedicated to his Saint, 
Philip, after a vow during a storm in Kocquaine Bay. 
There is the menhir stone in a meadow by one of the 
lanes. 

The highest peak of the islet is the perpendicular 



GUERNSEY. 



15 



cliif eastward of Maye Point, rising to 300 feet — with 
offset rocklets and caverns or slits in perfection. After 
the steep descent to the north-east into the little cove of 
Petit-bot, we mount abruptly to a very fine brow, Mount 
Hubert, the name associated with the chase, and as we 



;-:-;.:■. 




are now in the district of Le Fovet, we may believe that 
we are on the site of sylvan sport in the olden time. 
The dingle over which we look to the elevated church 
of Le Foret, on the opposite brow, reminds us of the 
ravines of Devon or Man, the road winding in zigzag 



16 GUERNSEY. 

down a very deep valley with a rippling streamlet at its 
side. We are now on the brow over Icart Bay, the wild- 
ness and breadth of its waters spread out far below us. 
The sienite rocks are finely chaotic, exactly grouped for 
the pencil, and among the best studies in the islets; and 
around us we may discover very luxuriant patches of 
lichen — among them the Roccella Tinctoria, or Orchel, 
to which we owe many a bright olive dye and the litmus 
paper so essential as a test. Another descent to east- 
ward brings us to the most exquisite little cove, Saint's 
Bay ; the huts and nets and grouping of fishermen are 
on a ledge of the rock, adding life to the otherwise 
solitary scene. The martello tower that was to guard 
the descent of the gorge, like a Border peel in Scotland, 
is properly perched to carry off the cliffs. Crossing Bon 
Point, the most fantastic outlying rocks of Muel Huet 
at once arrest the eye ; disintegration has left them at 




present almost as caricatures. Leaving St. Martin's on our 
left, the high brow of Jerbourg rises eastward, on which 
there is a lofty column to the memory of General Doyle. 
It is the finest point for a panorama of the isles ; Herm 
and Jedthou beneath us, Serque and Jersey extending 



GUERNSEY. ] 7 

their long grey ridges in the distance. The lines at 
Fort George commanding the road and the port are 
dismantled; from the eastern "bastion we gain a very fine 
bold view of the harbour and Castle Cornet, with the 
eastern coast to the Castle of du Val, Alderney, lying on 
the horizon. And so we accomplish the coast route of 
Guernsey. 

It is early evening in summer : wandering in the 
interior of this floral islet, we are directly surrounded by 
pretty quiet hamlets and homesteads : the abrupt lanes 
are lined and feathered by underwood of very luxuriant 
yet dwarfish growth. The little gardens are glowing 
with flowers, and they, as if to shame the forest by a 
contrast, attain a gigantic height, their colours being 
exquisitely deepened into perfect beauty. The tree ver- 
bena rises twenty feet ; camellia, oleander, myrtle, aloe, 
cystns, blue hydrangea, fuchsia, geranium, magnolia, 
all blooming profusely in the open air ; amaryllis, the 
Guernsey lily, being here unparalleled. The heliotrope 
overruns its bed in the wildest luxuriance — a carpet of 
the richest dyes more beautiful by far than the cloth of 
gold of Hindustan, and on which Flora might well hold 
her Court of Blossoms — and the canna indica is now a 
denizen in the islet. And here on the brow is the vil- 
lage of Catel, looking down and across the flats to 
Braye. The antique church of the twelfth century, 
frowning in dark stone, adds subject of high interest to 
the bright landscape around us. And look at that 
eccentric daub within it — three knights on horseback 
with falcons, and three skeletons lying on the ground. 
It is somewhat tempting to hatch a legend, but we re- 



18 GUERNSEY. 

frain in pity, especially as the ovum is addle. There 
are, however, real records of the ceremonial magnificence 
with which these islet churches were consecrated, that are 
truly entitled to a remembrance. Bishops and ahhots 
and feudal lords, with their trains of vassals and ser- 
vitors, were wont in days of old to take, we hope, a holy 
pride in assembling to grace the consecration with their 
state. Still more fanciful is the romance of the Well of 
St. George, near Catel, which is fraught with a very 
potent charm. St. George beats St. Valentine hollow: 
for a maiden has merely to make a votive offering to this 
Saint at his well nine days in succession, and lo ! if she 
looks then into the well, she not only sees her lover, but 
may claim him as her right. So he becomes a Benedict 
will he nill he. 

From the slopes as we walk are the home peeps down 
the lanes and across the dingles, with the church of du 
Val, and a windmill, and an arch, and the martello of 
Crevelt, composing pictures of quiet beauty ; and amid 
such fair scenes we wander along to St. Peter in the 
Vw)od, and St. Sauveurs (near which is the Beacon Hill, 
La Hogue foque.) and St. Andrew, all consecrated by 
ancient fanes that claim the era of Henry II. 

And there in the hall of an old manor house — for we 
are bold in our peregrination, and assume all the invasive 
liberty, the freemasonry of curiosity — there, in the hall, 
we look on a large couch covered with dry grass, fern, 
and heather; and what doth it import ? It is the Lit cle 
Veille. On this bed, during the dreary evenings of 
winter, assemble the maidens and youths of the isles, 
and there thev sit and huddle or recline often beneath 



HERM JEDTHOU. 19 

festoons of autumnal or dried flowers, and beguile the 
hours with song and chat, and thrifty needle too, forming 
a group worthy of the pen of Boccaccio or the pencil of 
Watte au. 

HERM AND JEDTHOU 

Are lying along in a lake of molten gold, for so smiles 
the Channel in a calm evening of July. We are rowed 
across with sketch-book and wallet and hammer. 

Jedthou — Grande Hogue — as it was a famous beacon- 
hill or watch-tower, is not more than a mile long, offering 
fair rock subjects for the pencil, with its satellite blocks, 
Fauconniere, Goubinier, and Crevisou, for every block has 
a name. 

Herm is two miles in length, and is deeply quarried. 
Eabbits are burrowing among its rocks, and very small 
Crustacea lie profusely around its shore. But there to 
the north is spread its carpet of sand and its shell beach, 
on which we may chance to gather very choice specimens : 
for instance, chiton, lepas, pholas, solen, tellen, chama, 
cyprsea, voluta, haliotis, murex, and sponge and coral. It 
is a treasury of wrecked shells ; probably among the 
granite there is a lack of lime for the construction of 
shell, so as to yield a profusion of living shell-fish. 

On such a night, and the currents calm, we may row 
across the Channel by moonlight to Port St. Pierre, as 
safely as we may float in a gondola across a lagune in 
Venice. The moon has lighted on our slumber, and at 
the earliest sunbeam we start from our couch, and we are 
looking on a long amethystine ridge just coming out of 
the morning haze, and thither are we bound. 

c 2 



S A RK: 

SERK — SERQUE GERS — L'lSLE DU CERS — SARNICA. 

This exquisite little islet is lying before us, eight miles 
off ; yet we may often gaze on it with longing eyes, even 
from the pier in Guernsey, with boats of all kinds, even 
the Lady (cutter) of Sark floating around us, without a 
hope of landing on its guarded rock. 

Now this little Serque was the cell of St. Magloire, an 
Armorican or Brittany bishop, and here he prayed and 
fasted himself into fitness for the conversion of the 
Channel islets. This cell, in the reign of Edward III., 
was still a ruined relic, and the islet was then a nest of 
corsairs : it still assumes a sort of wild or neutral aspect. 
In the reign of Edward VI. or that of Mary, the 
Flemings took it by stratagem, but in 1565 it was 
securely colonized by Hilary or Helier de Carteret, Lord 
of St. Ouen's, under a grant from Mary and from Eliza- 
beth of fief en Hubert, a guerdon for knight's service. 
There are monumental stones indicating its association 
with the Britons, and the Bomans we believe were not 
ignorant of Serque. The plan of this little gem is 
highly eccentric : a table-land, four miles long, two 
miles its greatest breadth, and five feet ! at the narrowest, 
spread on a majestic pile of rocks deeply indented with 






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SARK. 



21 



bays and coves and clefts, and fringed by groups of 
rocklets and ledges, in all the fantastic fashioning of the 
elements. These outposts, by increasing the difficulty 
of access, impart a deeper interest to the islet, scarcely 
alloyed by the slight sense of peril, for we are confident 
of being safely wafted, D. V., by the superior skill of the 
Serque boatmen, even among breakers and conflicting 
currents, into the tiny cove of Le Creux. So our Lady 
of Sark is safe at her moorings, and we are rowed into 
this puddle of a harbour, completely overhung by per- 
pendicular cliffs, 200 feet high, and richly clothed with 
velvet mosses and lichens, a complete study for Salvator 




or our own Pyne. This is the only point for landing in 
certain states of current or surf, although in very calm 



22 SAEK. 

weather there is an available cove to eastward, and the 
daring may be run ashore in the bays. But even from 
this beach we have no natural mode of escape. A tunnel 
in the cliff opens by an arch, over which is the date 
1688, the year of its construction by the Carterets; and 
so we walk out and up between green hills chequered 
with heath and rock, with triumphant pride at thus car- 
rying the mighty earthworks which the Gnome and the 
Triton have raised around their granite home. And so 
we seek our hostelry, and find it in a capital farm-house, 
and we are soon engaged with Madame Vaudin in a cosy 
chat, in which come out, so unexpectedly, records of our 
lamented friend, Sir John Franklin, who years ago 
sojourned in our very chamber, and slumbered within 
those green curtains ; and all this while the fish and the 
ducks and the puddings, bathed in exquisite cream, are 
being prepared for our luxurious and most economic 
feasting. And then, in the kitchen, we discuss the 
statistics, the poetry, and the government of the islet 
with this ancient, clever dame. Of this it is enough to 
record, that there are about forty yeomen, tillers of the 
land, in Serque, the magistracy of the isle, quite a 
Venetian Senate ; one of whom, we believe, may try a 
cause, subject, however, to an appeal to the forty, and to 
the Seigneur or Lord of Serque, who is of course their 
president. They are their own law-makers, not subject 
to the enactments of our legislature, exchequer, or cus- 
toms ; the only duty paid to England being a sort of 
quit-rent of £2 per annum. 

Our hostelry is in the pretty village of Dixcard, a 
few scattered houses forming the ville of Le Vorsque, 



SAKE. 23 

the chief rendezvous of the Serque islet, nearly in its 
centre. The dingle runs nearly across the islet, winding 
for about a mile between lofty brows down to its bay, 
and may form a line for our promenading — the northern 
and the southern walk. The beauties of the coast of 
Serque, however, should be revelled in ; they are worth 
more than a glance and away, and after a rapid survey of 
two days, we may wander away in any direction from our 
central roost, and be sure of descending in a score of 
minutes to some beauty of the rocks, some cove or block 
or boutique, the names of which, though sadly mutilated 
by the islanders, we will essay to record. 

Our first walk is by the church and the scattered ville 
of Eoselle and the Seigneury to the northern cape. 
This house of the lord is in the Tudor style, and boasts 
a lake, a boat, a bowling-green, a flagstaff, and a belvi- 
dere, and parterres and greenhouses of choice and beau- 
tiful flowers ; and it is near the head of a ravine leading 
down to the most exquisite cave of the islet. 

And here we are on the promontory of Point le Nez, 
the first cape on our scud from Guernsey. The ter- 
minal rocks are insular at high water, but Le Bee du 
Nez may be reached on a ledge at ebb of tide. On the 
brow the schist blocks, traversed by porphyry, are 
upheaved in the wildest confusion, and assume an end- 
less variety of form, more so than the shore blocks, 
which are washed and rolled and rounded by the 
waves. It is a fine wild range to begin with. The turf 
down invites us even to an Olympic race, for the pure 
air elevates both the will and the power of our frame. 
We feel our muscular energy almost grow upon us, and 



24 SARK. 

when we have revelled on the turf, then clown among the 
white, smooth rocks that lie scattered around in chaotic 
rudeness, like the thrones of Titanic nobles. But pro- 
lific nature has gemmed these blocks for a more charm- 
ing study than mythological fancies; there is a garden of 
lichens strewn for our special admiration on their sur- 
face ; there are the golden studs of squammaria, and the 
grey and purple bosses of parmelia ; and if we peep 
between these stone giants, we shall light on many a 
lovely flower and rich green plant, blooming and luxu- 
riating within little nooks, and nursed by their genial 
shelter. The scolopendrium and hart's tongue are long 
and broad in leaf, and the grammitis expands its fronds in 
profusion ; and here we breasted one of the most violent 
gales of the Channel, not without some peril, for it was 
often difficult to hang on ; but the wind blew into us 
such a joyous and refreshing energy and power that this 
clinging to the rocks was no labour. Our sketch-book 
was not so fortunate, it was whirled from our grasp in a 
moment, and dashed against a towering block. We 
rushed wildly to save our treasure, but four or five of our 
favourite sketches were wafted in a few seconds high up 
among the clouds, imparting a deeper value to the 



Ascending the ledge to the eastern side of the Corbie 
du Nez'ov Grin, we come abruptly on a yawning cleft 
that nearly isolates the cape itself. Its aspect is formi- 
dable but its descent is easy, and it leads down to the 
mouth or funnel of the largest cave in the islet, La 
Boutique, par excellence. To reach an inner cave a 
barrier must be mounted. At high water, the billows, 



SARK. 



25 



after dashing on the shore cliff, rush in with a thundering 
sound at two chasms on the north and west* At low 
water the inner boutique may be entered with a light ; it 
is lofty, and on its surface there are a few stalactitic 
droppings and a sprinkling of ferns. There are smaller 
caverns in the cliffs. We come out on the broad bay of 
Banquette, and in the little cave to southward stand 
out in the most fantastic beauty the finest outlying rocks 
in the islet, Les Autilets — little altars : in complete con- 




trast, however, one being a stupendous cube of Grau- 
wacke on a very narrow base, the other a huge pyramid, 
on the ledges of which a flight of choughs and shags 
settle and roost in the evening. The overhanging cliffs 
are nearly perpendicular, and along their base lie around 
in heaps the most gigantic blocks of very variegated 
stones, black, red and grey; and unlike the angular blocks 
on the hills they are mathematically rounded off by the 
attrition of the waves. Among these rocks are deep pools 



26 SARK. 

of water, in which we may discover small Crustacea, and 
rich varieties of the daisy actinia, the nereis, and 
holothuria, and other anthozoa. There is one flaunting 
in bright orange, and yonder crawls the hermit crab 
that seems to have perforated an actinia within a shell, 
the tissue of the anemone forming a ring round the 
crab. Many of the blocks are richly clothed with fucus 
spiralis (bladdervraich) and crithmum {samphire) in 
all their splendour of gold and bronze. We must be 
wary, however, in paddling over these slippery carpets, a 
fall from them is not a trifle. Chondrus membranifo- 
lius, and pink and green polysyphonia and dasya are 
hanging on the cliffs, and the idva and porphyra, oyster- 
green, and purple laver on the deeper rocks. The blocks 
are studded with minute univalves, and the patella 
shells of the limpet show like bosses on a shield. 

Through a splendid arch of dark reddish sienite, 
marked by horizontal lines of schist, standing nobly out 
from the cliff, we pass into the next bay, the most mag- 
nificent in Serque, Porte Meidlin. It is a deep wide 
cave, overfrowned by cliffs of clay shale 300 feet high, 
that come down perpendicularly on the beach. On their 
sides and brow zigzags are cut, by which the summit is 
gained, and from it we look down on the most splendid 
grouping of the islet. A cleft on the south side of Port 
Meullin sets off an isolated rock of very quaint form, 
and leads to another fine cave with chaotic blocks and 
pools, a lofty pinnacle towering above the cleft, and a 
wide cavern yawning in the islet rock. . These rocks are 
bronzed by masses of golden gelatine, laminaria bulbosa, 
and fucus canaliadatus. 



SARK. 27 



Among these ferruginous blocks, talc and 
and agate chalcedony, green, red, and yellow jasper may 
be discovered, and veins of lapis ollaris running across 
the islet. 

During the western gales — and we now encountered 
one of the most determined violence — -the waves roll 
into Port Meullin a profusion of the most magnifi- 
cent algse or weeds that we have beheld. In a few 
minutes we selected and displayed on the pebbles half 
a score of splendid specimens, a complete museum of 
sea treasure. There was a gigantic flag, six yards long, 
of rich sienna brown with a fringe of pink, covered 
with white spots, laminaria saccharina, or sea hanger. 
There were the fleshy fans of nitrophyllum ; long brown 
ribbon slips six or eight in a bunch, asperococcus and 
rhodomenia ; bunches of golden pods or bladders at the 
end of narrow leaves, fucus spiralis ; huge bunches of 
broad reddish leaves, like those of the oak, delesseria 
sanguinea ; eight or ten ribbon thongs, six feet long, on 
a thick brown stem, laminaria digitata (they might be 
a cat-o'-nine-tails for the backs of the Nereids) ; filigree 
weeds of the purest pink and white, polysyphonia and 
dasya; very long, tough, gelatinous brown thongs in a 
bow, chorda jilum, sea whip-lash, and the purple iriclea. 
The heath brows over this lane are clothed in corre- 
sponding luxuriance. There were at least three species 
of erica, a profusion of spurges, aspidia, and asplenia 
ferns; ophioglossum, adder's-tongue, and an adiantum, 
maiden-hair fern, and dwarf polypodium were springing 
from the stunted stems, and little tufts, like codium 
bursce, green purse-moss, and all these among clumps of 



28 SARK. 

thrift and chicory, and dwarf thistles, and wild sage and 
spinach, and vaccinia. We could not light on the 
stramonium, wormivood, or canna indica, which we were 
told now grew wild in the islet. 

Couleur cle rose will ever gild our memory of Port 
Meullin. It was the scene of our first grand impression 
of the extreme beauty of Serque ; but it was gilded by a 
sentiment somewhat beyond mere admiration. From 
another point, a very courteous gentleman left his islet 
villa, and his lady and his luncheon, and guided us to 
the descent, where a bevy of fair girls, in all the romance 
of elegant deshabille, were gathering weed and pebbles 
among the rocks. Charming ! Look across from Port 
Meullin to Havre Gosselin ; there is a green fissure in the 
cliff 200 feet in height, as if the rocks had quarrelled 
and fallen away from each other — it is the Moie du 
Mouton, and along it sheep are lifted to browse on the 
green down above. 

And there on the right stretches the bold isolated rock, 
Brechou, or Lisle de Merchant, a table of rich mould 
on a belt of flat rock. On its southern side yawns a 
very lofty chasm. We longed to pore into it ; but the 
currents daunted even the boatmen of Serque. Pound 
the point of Lionee opens the wide bay of Le Grand Greve, 
divided from the opposite bay by that most eccentric 
wall of rock 200 feet high and 6 feet thick on its ridge. 
This cowpee, thus pared down for safety and for traffic, is 
chiefly of sienite or hornblende granite, traversed by a 
vein of porcelain clay, and it divides the islet into Great 
and Little Serk. This, perhaps prudent cutting down, has, 
however, shorn the guide-books of the high-flown 



SARK. 



29 



epithets of "awe" and " terror," which they affirm must 
strike the adventurer from Great to Little Serk. This 
peninsula, presq He du petit Serque — wears a dreary 
aspect on its face ; yet parterres of the most splendid 
ericas here and there adorn its soil — a little nest of cots 
and some scattered ruins of miners' huts display a 




curious contrast of vitality and desertion. The southern 
point is the mining district ; and though they have quite 
abandoned the search for ore, the superficial barrenness 
is perfectly consistent with mineral impregnation below. 
Our research for mollusca was more fertile in the pools 



30 SAEK. 

about the southern point than elsewhere. As we round 
the point we come on a little hay, the avant courier of a 
splendid succession of coves and clefts on the eastern 
coast, and lying off this southern point peers up the hold 
rock L'Etat du Sera. Every brow on this deeply indented 
shore should be rounded and scaled and descended, as far 
as the worn or stony path can be traced, and then we 
look directly on the face of the cliff and into the caverns. 
There is one cave especially, called, we believe, Le Pot, 
as fine as can be imagined — the boldest feature of Little 
Serk, and on these rock-brows the lichens are in beautiful 
profusion, and the grey and yellow cetraria, and the 
fleshy sycophorus deformis. 

We now come round to the eastern cliff of Coupee 
Bay, its extraordinary wall lifting up its causeway 
almost in the clouds. Beyond, the next headland opens 
on us the fine bay of Baleine, or Dixcard, the holiday 
spot of the islet. It is carpeted by white sand, on 
which small boats may be pushed in calm weather ; it is 
the bathing-place of the visitors, whose half-mile walk 
from the hotel is chiefly on the greensward, and there is 
an arched cave in a pinnacle for our disrobing. Every 
step on this bold shore displays a fresh picture. 

Le Creux cavern, a great hole 100 feet deep, and opening 
above on the hill, yawns on the beach. At high-water a 
boat can be pushed into this cauldron, which is a perfect 
miniature of the famed Buller of Buchan in Scotland. 
Point Vignette, La Terrible, or La Conchee, lifts its proud 
pinnacles beyond this. Les Burons and La Mote lie off 
the cliffs. Then comes a black ridge, looking like por- 
phyry, termed, we believe, La Chateau. It bounds the 



SAEZ. 



31 



only little cave, I/Eperquerie — Paregorois — Port Gourey, 
in which boats may be sheltered and moored. Into this 
caverned cave of green velvet it was our fortune to descend 
during one of the severest gales, the rolling foam beauti- 
fully contrasting with the black-green rocks. The small 
boats were dancing high on the liquid mountain, and even 
the cutters and a lugger were rocking and dipping their 
bows in the water, and yet at the time the water in this cave, 
and in Creux also, was the calmest around the islet. The 
group of fishermen below us on a rock-ledge were seem- 
ingly in dilemma for ourselves. It was a most perilous 
footing ; so boisterous was the blast around the rocks, that 




we were compelled to cling to the rocks, and several of 
our hapless sketches were wafted aloft in a moment. The 
sailors seemed to think us wild, and to wonder how and 



32 SARK. 

whence we came, and, indeed, why we came at all ; and 
yet this was what we hoped to see — a calm would have 
tamed the scene down to insignificance. Close to the 
landing-place and the off-lying rock it is all perfect 
studies. We have La Chapel de Meuve, a square block 
of pendant granite, as if momentarily about to fall. The 
range of rocks on the eastern coast consist chiefly of 
sienite. We have now well-nigh rounded the islet of 
Serk, a complete embarras de richesse ; one glimpse 
of these rocks taken at random were worth a day's 
journey. 

Hark ! amid the howling of the wind there is the scrape 
of a fiddle — shade of Straduarius, a cremona in Serk ! 
A band of wandering minstrels are wind-bound in the 
islet, and in sympathy they are about to invoke Terpsi- 
chore in a stable-loft, approached by a narrow mud 
path, beneath a dripping hedge and a muck-heap ! And 
there is the fair, the fairest maid in Serk, Fanny, of whom 
it is the fashion to talk, flirting in very accomplished style, 
raising flames of jealousy among the juveniles who resort 
to Mrs. Hizzlehurst's hotel. It was a very fair bit of 
romantic burlesque, and took. 

We are in Serk four days more than we had con- 
templated; the pressure of harvest binds us in the islet; 
all hands to the sickle and the sheaf. Boreas, however, 
had the credit of our imprisonment ; yet we regret it not 
— almost every waking hour was passed in contemplation 
of some fresh beauty. The bracing breeze of health, the 
complete retirement — solitude, if you will — the absence 
of all mere holiday intrusion, the instant transition from 
our hostelry into the midst of romantic beauty, to be 



SARK. 66 

admired or studied as the fit may work, and, withal, the 
order of domestic economy, all mark this little islet as 
the perfect home of the student who is reading or writing 
- — of the romantic wanderer — of the artist — of the geolo- 
gist — of all, indeed, who love to revel in wild and un- 
spoliated nature. 

Adieu ! beautiful Sark, we shall not soon forget your 
perfection; adieu! for yonder lies the "Lady" of the 
islet, in whose bosom we are to be wafted off to Guernsey 
with the market-people who wend to St. Peters Port 
to replenish the exhausted stores of the islet. Eomance 
itself must be fed, it cannot live on flowers : and so, at 
five in the morning, in bright moonlight, amid a bevy of 
visitors and a group of Serquois peasants, we have 
passed the portal of the rocks, and wait on the beach to 
be rowed to the cutter in the cove — wind, tide, and cur- 
rents dead against us; so, to gain an offing, we make 
the tour of the island, and by a long tack of three miles 
run up the Great Eussell and round Castle Cornet into 
the haven of Sarnia. 

And now, still further southward, we are nearing the 
fairest islet of the Channel, and after the circuitous 
struggles of oar voyage from Serque, with all the charm 
of contrast, we overcome time and space with almost a 
certainty of progression. We chuckle at this triumph 
of vapour over the gales, yet with time to spare, and 
with wind and tide and current in our favour — a very 
rare coincidence in the Channel seas — we would yet 
prefer to hoist our canvas, and skim leisurely over the 
glittering waves to Jersey. 



JERSEY: 

C.ESAREA AUGIA JARSARY JERESEYE GERSEY — 

GERSUI GEARSEY — LA DEROUTE DEARS1 (Gaelic). 

We have rounded the south-western point of the islet, 
and are floating into the wide bright bay of St. Aubin's, 
steering by the western passage through the narrows 
between the bold fortress of Elizabeth Castle and the 
pier, and we wend at once to our hostelry at St. 
Helier's. 

This Jersey is an oblong islet, about twelve miles 
from east to west, by about seven or eight from north to 
south, extending from the Points of Sorell and of Noir- 
mont, and those of Belle Hogue and Du Pas. It is 
completely escalloped by bays and coves and ravines, 
with their essential rocks and promontories, and belted 
with myriads of outlying rocklets of very eccentric 
forms, composed chiefly of sienite and porphyry. The 
five Points on the south coast — Corbiere, Moye, Noir- 
mont, Le Nez, and La Eoque, being nearly in the same 
latitude. To these natural bulwarks the art of defence 
has added a circle of martello towers around the coast, 
and these are now so completely dismantled as even to 
embellish and add interest to the landscape ; for they 
seem to tell of deeds and people of a feudal age, like the 
Border peels of the north. The three great bays of 



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JERSEY. 35 

St. Ouen, St. Aubin, and Grouville, form the flat 
shores of the islet. 

The area of the islet is about 40,000 acres ■ its popu- 
lation about 37,000. It is divided into twelve parishes — 
St. Helier's, St. Lawrence, St. Peter's, St. Brelade, St. 
Ouen, St. John, St. Mary, Trinity, St. Martin, St. Sa- 
viour, St. Clement, Grouville — and subdivided into about 
forty vintaines, an area containing twenty houses. 

From each of these churches, which were held sacred as 
a sanctuary, there was in ancient times a direct road — 
Perquages — to the coast, by which the criminal might 
escape unscathed if he kept the direct line. 

And these are the chief officers of the islet: — The mili- 
tary lieutenant-governor, the baillie, and the dean, ap- 
pointed by the sovereign ; the advocate, selected by the 
baillie, and the twelve judges, by the people. 

As we step on the quay of St. Helier's, or "town" we 
look on quaint grey houses assuming a Norman aspect ; 
but as we proceed to the interior we are reminded of an 
English market-town, with neat shops and new wine- 
houses. There are about 1000 houses in the town ; its 
population being about 30,000. 

In the royal square is the court-house, La Cohue, of 
the date of 1647, around which we meet loungers and 
gossips, especially during the sittings, and in the centre 
is a royal statue. 

The public library was erected by Falle, the historian 
of Jersey, and contains a very fair batch of literature, 
and also the drawings of Oapelin, a native artist. 

There is a new prison, and a hospital, and a poor- 
house. 

d 2 



36 JERSEY. 

St. Helier's is prolific of temples of worship. Amidst 
French Protestant and Catholic fanes and conventicles, 
stands pre-eminent in the royal square the mother Church, 
500 years old, and of pure Norman style, — a new aisle, 
in perfect harmony, being lately added. Very grotesque 
gargouilles and a profusion of ivy mark it as a very 
eccentric pile. The government stall and pulpit are 
ancient, and there are monuments and slabs to the 
memory of Carterets in 1767 — Durel, Dauvergues, Gor- 
don, and Pierson, the defender. The gallery stairs are 
outside the walls. The evening is devoted to the French 
service. 

The several market-places, especially on Saturdays, 
are scenes of very lively interest. The produce of the 
Jersey gardens is most prolific, and sold at a moderate 
price. The grapes are pre-eminent, and the Chaumontelle 
pear has nearly attained the weight of one pound, and 
is often sold at five guineas per hundred. In the after- 
noon the market is a sort of fashion ; but the grouping 
of the buyers and the loungers is not picturesque, the 
costume being chiefly the formal cut of England, or the 
sombre colours of Normandy. The colloquial language 
is a mingling of French and English : the children are 
taught both, but, whether in truth or in courtesy, several 
assured us that they preferred the English. 

The votary of mere pleasure or the excitement of 
gaiety, must not sojourn in Jersey : out of the pale of 
select society St. Helier's will be most monotonous ; it 
will be indeed a complete blank, and he will quietly fly 
off to scenes more exciting though infiuitely less health- 
ful and happy, leaving beautiful Jersey to us, to those 



JERSEY. 



37 



whom the Deity has endowed with a deeper feeling for 
the charms of Nature's loveliness. 

The visitation of the ancient and modern works around 
St. Helier's is worth a day even to the superficial gazer. 
The eye of the archseologist and the artist is attracted at 
once by the bold fortress of Elizabeth Castle, isolated at 
high tide, but approached at low-water on the floor of 
the bay. Along a causeway track from the " Black rock/' 
on the shore, we wend with market-women at our heels, 
and meet a company of soldiers marching on some duty 
to St. Helier's. We must not linger in our survey, as 
the tide will flow in four or five hours, often to the 
height of forty feet. 

The castle stands amidst a group of schist rocks, 




about a mile in circumference. One of the outermost 
blocks is crowned by the remnant of a real hermitage, 
the cell of St. Helier, who was murdered in the ninth 
century by a band of Norman pirates. 

The access to the stronghold is intricate and well 



38 JERSEY. 

planned for safety and defence. It was built in the 
seventeenth century. Amidst a profusion of modern 
and debasing architecture, look on the very curious gate- 
arch, on the ascent to the keep. Above a fleur-de-lis at 
the point of the ogee of the arch is an escutcheon in 
stone — the royal shield of Britain, crested by the red 
and white roses. Over the left feet of the supporters are 
the initials, E. E., of the maiden Qneen, in whose reign 
the first stone was laid. On one of the arches is a cir- 
cular disc, displaying daggers and a fret. To this keep 
Charles II., when Prince of Wales, fled for refuge, with 
his brother James and Clarendon, the islet of Jersey 
having declared for him, while Guernsey sided with the 
Parliament ; and here Charles drew a new map of the 
island, and Clarendon penned part of his celebrated record 
of the Rebellion. In gratitude for its loyalty the King 
presented them with a gilt mace on the Restoration, and 
graced it with a Latin inscription. 

Across a deeper water opens the capacious harbour, 
with its two piers, Victoria and Albert, which, especially 
in storm and tempest, is often crowded with vessels. 
The basins were now nearly destitute of craft; but 
cicephalce are floating around the piers. Crowning the 
high green-stone ridge above it, Mont cle la Ville, is 
Fort Regent, a fortress, erected at the cost of a million, 
of stone from the quarry of Medo, on the northern 
coast. Its area is about four acres. It is bomb-proof, 
and commands completely the bay and the town. The 
view from its height compasses the bay of St. Aubiu, the 
government house, the college, a mansion of modern 
Gothic, erected in 1846, after the Queen's visit, and the 



JEESEY. 39 

south-eastern corner around St. Clement's and Grou- 
ville, the Banc cles Violets displaying a strange group of 
black blocks among the surf waves. At low tide the 
bay is a wide stone basin, carpeted with rock and weed. 
As we looked on it at high water, in an autumn sunset, 
it was a mirror of liquid amethyst. 

On the brows around St. Helier's many Druidical 
stones and tumuli have been discovered. The chief 
cairn, or Poquelaye, very complete, with its circle and 
alley, was revealed in ] 785. It was removed entire by 
General Conway to Park Place at Henley. 

And now there are three classes of subjects that are to 
be admired and studied in Jersey — the magnificent cliffs, 
the beautiful bays, and the fair natural garden of the 
interior, taking up the archaeological relics in our way as 
choice moi'ceaux of historic illustration, adding an interest 
even to the face of Nature. 

In our visitation of the bay and the cliffs we thread the 
lanes and valleys, scenes of very contrasted excellence, 
like the picture of a fair beauty within a richly- carved 
frame. The scenic grandeur of Jersey is between Le Tac 
and La Coupe, the whole northern coast of the islet, and 
at the south-eastern corner, from Noirmont to La Rocca 
in St. Ouen's, all exquisitely rich in rockwork. The coast 
from St. Helier's to Gourey is a mass of button rocks. 
In the interior St. Peter's displays the only Devonian 
valley. But throughout the islet there are very lovely 
spots, like those of Kent and Surrey, for our rambling, 
amid meadows enlivened by tethered cows and green 
hedge-rows, enamelled with flowers, often rich and rare, 
on which bees luxuriate and gather their luscious stores 



40 JERSEY. 

of honey, and dingles (the Val des Vaux is close to 
"Town") feathered with petit, though very luxuriant 
foliage ; but there are no gigantic woods of oak or beech 
frowning from uplands of chalk or sand. The descent 
to the caves, however, opens all around us, often with 
the heightening charm of unexpectedness, dingles of 
surpassing beauty, as wild as we can wish them. And 
to all this, the mere holiday folk may be wafted along 
the military roads of General Don, and they may be 
lifted from St. Helier's to St. Aubin's and to Gourey in 
public coaches. We, who come to ivoo Nature — for we 
love her with all the pure idolatry of a Thomson or a 
Davy — select the bye-lanes and the meadow paths. Yet 
even here we loiter not, although these garden meads of 
Jersey are the very choicest spots for the secluded ram- 
bles of lovers and the joyous festa of gipsying, espe- 
cially when the warm south-west blows over the Atlantic. 
But running water is well-nigh a blank in Jersey. 
As in all small islets, the rivulets are quiet little runnels 
rippling down from springs on the northern brow, and 
stealing south straight into the bays ; the gulleys of 
Greve le Lecq and Boullay creeping northward. Here 
and there the runnels turn a little mill-wheel ; and then, 
in our walks, we often stumble on an old church, and 
also on a venerable manor-house, of which there are 
about half a score in Jersey, St. Ouen's, Bosell, La Hogue 
Boete, &c. And now to compass the beauty of Jersey. 
The walks should be around and across the south-west 
and south-east corners, from Town to La Corbiere, and 
to Gourey, the northern coast from Le Tac to St. John's, 
and thence to St. Martin's. A pony may carry us to 



JERSEY. 41 

any of the northern villes, from which we may reach the 
magnificent points of the northern coast, or a carriage 
may take us along the Devonian valley of St. Peter's to 
St. Ouen's, and await us at St. Martin's, to bring us back 
to St. Helier's, and, in this lovely valley of St. Peter's, 
if we are fond of cryptogamic botany, let us thread the 
bosky cliffs of the glen, and on the stems of the wild rose 
find the finest tufts of the beautiful golden lichen, Borrera 
chrysophthalmai 

High and low water display contrasted aspects, both 
equally perfect. At high tide, the full bays and havens, 
like gigantic mirrors, are resplendent with the reflection 
of their beautiful shores. 

To the botanist, the geologist, and even the artist, low 
water is far more propitious, for the beach, cliffs, and 
rocks are profuse in weed and sea-flowers and pebbles 
and shells, and they thus give up their treasures for the 
seeking ; the outlines and colours present a perfect charm 
for the pencil. 

Let us be off in pursuit of these temptations, scramble 
among the rocks, creep round the bays, or into the caves ; 
for, like the violet, much of the more enduring beauty 
of the creation lies hid in the deep shades of the earth. 

We are about to make the circuit of the islet. It is 
high water, and we float over the wide bay to St. Aubins, 
or to Noirmont. It is low tide, and we walk round the 
shore of this marine crescent on the firm carpet of sand. 
(At a tiny rill at Doet cle Demigrave there is a very 
sudden transition from firm to soft.) There a group of 
girls are disporting like Nereids among the waves. It 
is at full tide, and at evening hour, however, that the bay 



42 



JERSEY. 



of St. Aubin's is perfect to the eye ; the setting sun is 
flinging the most gorgeous colours on the little slate 
rocks and the walls of the fort : the hue is gold, with a 
shadow of bronze, while the more distant walls of Eliza- 
beth Castle are bronze with shadows of deep grey, a 
scene special for the eccentric brush of Turner. 

From the brow over St. Aubin's the view is splendid, 
overlooking the now poor, yet neat and secluded little 
village town, its petty haven, and its castle. We are at 
the entrance of a richly wooded glen, leading up to the 
peninsular hill (on which stands a tolmen stone), that 
dips southward to Noirmont, a ridge formed of sienite, 
rose feldspar, and thallite, striated at the point; ay, 
and we may gather a wallet-full of ferns — and there is 
one very rare, if not quite unknown, in England, gyno- 
gramma leptophylla. We may creep round the secluded 
Portelet Bay (enlivened by the Janerim towers or mar- 
tello) from Noirmo7it to Point la Frette, or descend from 
the brow to the broad bright bay of St. Brelade's, di- 




JERSEY. 



43 



vided by a red rock ledge into two ; the cliffs and rocks 
corne out in great splendour, and the out-crops of the 
sienite groups on the hills are in the finest style. One 
enormous mass of blocks is a perfect specimen of Titanic 
arrangement ; it looks primeval, antediluvian. It is 
richly covered by grey and yellow lichen, and deeply 
festooned with ivy and clematis, amidst the most luxu- 
riant variety of heath-flowers, pink and deep purple, 
blended with the bright golden pods and deep green of 
the mountain furze. Around it are the green tufts of 
the protonoma moss and the adiantum, or maiden-hair 
fern, and myriads of the dwarf rose clamour are studding 
the turf, and amidst all this floral profusion green lizards 
are creeping stealthily, their eyelets sparkling like dia- 
mond points amid the leaves — a perfect study for a Pre- 
Eaphaelite. From the hills we descend to the white 
hard-soft sand around the crescent bay — it is a luxury 
to step on it. 

The gem of St. Brelade's is its very quaint little 
church, the parish fane of St. Aubin's. It is perched on 




44 JERSEY. 

the edge of the Rock cliff, overwashed by the waves at 
spring tide, and surrounded by tombs and slabs on the 
velvet turf, and spotted with cypress. It is of the sera of 
Henry I., 1111, one of the twenty -five erected at that 
period, and its history bears a very romantic legend. It 
was to have been built eastward of the bay, but the 
fairies of the sward removed from their realm the work 
and tools of the masons for three successive nights, and 
dropped them at St. Brelade's ; and at length the people, 
in a panic, yet warned and directed by this deposit, 
erected their church on the spot which the fairies had 
thus selected. On the walls of an antique chapel the 
form of Herod and the angel Gabriel are rudely figured, 
and on a scroll from the mouth of the Tetrarch is in- 
scribed, " Herod le Roy," and before him is the Saviour, 
bearing his cross. 

On the brow of La Maye is the signal-post, and off 
the cove of Beauport lie the Aiguillons rocks, and off the 
south-west point the rock of La Corbiere, its apex 
painted white for a sea-mark. From the downs the 
views are complete. 

An extensive district of this south-west corner, Les 
Quenvais, is a record of the devastation of the hurricane 
in the fifteenth century. In St. Ouen's Bay, as in 
Loughneagh, in Ireland, it is believed that ruins of 
houses and walls are visible at low ebb. The village 
was overwhelmed, and all the people drowned, for 
decoying, by false beacons, some Spanish argosies that 
then foundered on the rocks. The wreckers plundered and 
plunged them into the deep. As they were by Baccha- 
nalian orgies celebrating the anniversary of the wreck, 



JERSEY. 45 

the sea rolled in and overwhelmed the sinners and their 
ville beneath its waves. 

And there spreads ont its arc of nearly three miles 
the flat hay of St. Ouen, from the rock of La Corbih'e to 
that of Le Tac, or La Crevasse. The bay shore con- 
sists almost entirely of round hillocks of mica-quartz 
sand (the relics be sure of the avenging elements), pro- 
fusely covered by long marine grasses, to the fine stems 
of which myriads of tiny univalves are adhering. The 
sea holly, eryngo, is in the most brilliant flowering ; its 
blossom, of the purest cerulean blue, may rival in Jersey 
the brightest exotic of the greenhouse. The Great and 
Little Sandbanks lie off the bay, and nearer are the fine 
group of La Rocca, and the Gov den tower in the bight. 

The quaint ancient church of St. Ouen is on the brow 
and close by the venerable manor-house, and there is a 
fresh-water marsh lake, La Mara. And here Sir Philip 
de Carteret was fishing in the olden time, when he was 
attacked by a French troop ; but he escaped by leaping 
his horse over a chasm near La Val de la Charriere, the 
animal falling dead as he reached his home. A giant 
rock stands alone at Le Tac and La Pinnacle, 100 feet 
high at the extreme point, both very fine studies. A 
recluse may lodge at Le Tac, almost out of the world. 

The road abruptly winds from the beach over the 
hill, and on the downs we are at the hamlets of Grosnez 
and Vincelez. Cape Grosnez, "the great nose," points 
half a mile to the left, the boldest cliff of the islet. The 
rocks are of magnificent proportions, 300 feet deep, and 
almost perpendicular. The gate arch of the very ancient 
castle of Grosnez, its origin believed to be Roman, and 



46 JERSEY. 

the home of Le Carteret, in the sera of the Plantagenets, 
stands alone on its green platform. From it the whole 
group of islets to the north-west forms an exquisite little 
picture. 

From the "Stone Plank," lying across a deep rock 
ravine, a youth fell, and was washed to sea, in sight of 
his friends assembled at a pic-nic. 

A flash, a peal — ay, all in keeping with the scene — 
the growl of thunder completely around and above us, 
and the lurid gleam flings a sort of spectral halo over the 
heavens. There are two intensely black clouds sailing 
in contrary currents towards each other, like destroying 
spirits. The flash from the Guernsey cloud charged 
highly electric streams over to that from Sark. Guernsey 
comes out in bright light for a moment, and then is lost. 
Sark is overshadowed, and looms out like a great purple 
wall, the chiselling of its cliffs and rocks, that a minute 
since showed like huge bastions and gables, is totally 
obscured. An awful position, if we linger here, and yet 
the mise en scene is most magnificent — sublime. The 
storm instantly bursts on Grosnez, and we brave its wild 
fury, to look forth on a glory from which Salvator, 
Loutherbourg, and Turner might have drunk in ideas 
of elemental majesty. A black and murky cloud settles 
round yon point of Pleinmont, a bold, caverned rock of 
sharp sienite, shaking with its thunder the old fort and 
drawbridge, and driving its flood across the bay of Greve 
au Laucheon, and far into its caves of gloom, 400 feet 
deep. One of those sudden transitions of electric storm 
brings out the brightest sunbeams, and we look across 
yonder rocky dingle two miles away on the beautiful 



JERSEY, 



47 



cove of Greve la Lecq, with its barrack and hostelry. 
The sea is rolling gloriously at high water over the 
rocks of Les Deniers, its mountains of milk-white foam 
breaking on a floor of sand as white as they, and thun- 
dering on the deep umber rocks, embossed on the sur- 
face, and then rolling with a deeper roar into that yawn- 
ing cavern on the western cliff. Towering over the 
shore of the bay hang stupendous cliffs, some 400 feet 
high. From the eastern mound over the Crab Caves, 
Catel cle Lecq, we look up the two dingles which come 
down, rich in woodland, to the bay, just about an old 
grey martello : then by a mere turn on the heel we are 
directly on the verge of a magnificent cave, closed in by 




48 JEESEY. 

cliffs nearly 500 feet high, huge granite blocks strewed 
around their bases, and more seaward a belt of white 
sand and a beach of black pebbles. The scene is wild 
and rude as the Hebrides, and where the rolling surge 
on the beach meets the transient flood of a storm-cloud, 
it displays a picture almost as majestic as a sea-loch in 
Skye. 

On the face of the cliff yawn two deep and dark 
caverns, to reach which at low water a ledge of rudest 
steps has been cut diagonally on the perpendicular face 
of the rock. The descent by this rock-ladder is no 
puerile feat. We are halfway down, and are checked by 
a block having fallen from the ledge. There was no 
turning, so there we lay on the side looking down over 
the perpendicular 200 feet on the black rocks in the cave. 
To fall or not to fall, that was the question : if we 
condescended to drop, that is, to descend rapidly, in 
obedience to the primal law of gravitation, a fracture of 
limb or neck was a certainty, and yet we deemed an 
ascent an impossibility ; so as a dernier ressort, or rather 
a forlorn hope, we turned on the back, worked upwards 
half on and half off the cliff, when happily a wider ledge 
by six inches enabled us to turn, and then we stood 
erect in proud triumph, crowing like a bantam at our 
really narrow escape, and looked gratefully down on the 
frowning rocks thus cheated of " an awful catastrophe." 
There is a grey kite, too, hovering noiselessly over our 
head. We wave him off majestically — we are not to be 
the prey of gleds and corbies be sure on't. 

Silence reigns around, a calm between the storms, 
save when the sea-bird flutters screaming along, or the 



JERSEY. 4 9 

beetle wheels around us his droning flight. But, hark ! 
again — thunder is growling like a jealous gnome at our 
escape and our exalted enjoyment. Twice, indeed, we 
essayed to leave this accomplished spot, and lingered 
until the broad evening shadows began to deepen even 
the gloom of the storm-cloud, and we descend by two 
dismantled forts, their guns lying rusted on the turf. 
Les Pierres du lacq — the Paternosters — high above 
water on our ascent, are now lost in the deep. 

The tempest was raging as we were driving down a 
wooded dingle. A flash and a crash in quick succes- 
sion — the lightning has struck the rock : a huge block, 
several tons in weight, rolls thundering down the preci- 
pice, crushing trees to atoms in its downward course. 

The driver of our carriage is scared from under the 
boughs and dashes down the valley like a madman. 
Poor fellow, he was neither a Franklin nor a Faraday ; 
and not reflecting that the storm-cloud travels swiftly, 
he did not know that this very dingle was now the safest 
place in Jersey. 

The villes of St. Mary and St. John are near us; 
their churches of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries. 

In St. John's, on its saint's eve, was once celebrated 
in all its degraded perfection of orchard-robbing, cow- 
milking, &c, the wild marauding game of Faire brave 
les Poeles, a stain on the sporting annals of Jersey. It 
is now, we hope and believe, nearly obsolete. 

The coast is still bold, and there are tiny cascades on 
the runnels close by, and a ruined mill somewhat pic- 
turesque. It is on this northern coast that the scenic 
contrasts of the islet are so exquisitely displayed. Not 

E 



50 JERSEY. 



far from the verge of a cliff 300 feet high, we are in a 
leafy dingle, and look over the waters unconscious of our 
height. Yonder, a mile off, are the Pierres du lacq at 




low water ; the front of Guernsey looming on the left, 
and Serk rearing its majestic wall of sienite on the 
right. 

The granite quarries of Mount Maclo are above the 
coast, and near the point of Belle Hogue there is a little 
twin spring of water that is believed to cure blindness, 
age, and dumbness — and this is the legend of the wells. 
These little founts were the tears of two fairies — for 
fays feel like ordinary mortals. — Well, Arna and Aruna 
were wont to gambol and to chant around the rocks of 
Belle Hogue. They were at length sanctified, and wafted 
to heaven by an angel ; but the love of their Channel 
home was still warm in their little bosoms, and once, 
musing in melancholy mood on the delights of their 
Belle Hogue, and fluttering with longing hearts directly 
over the enchanting spot, each dropped a tear of regret 
on the earth, and from them two little fountains were 
instantly playing up the sparkle of their crystal drops. 

From Belle Hogue to the bold round block of La 
Coupe, the cliffs are of breccia, or pudding-stone ; the 



JERSEY. 51 

rest is chiefly schist, with veins of porphyry, especially 
about St. Martin's and Eoselle. 

Trinity lies about a mile from the shore. In the old 
manor house, the home of the Carterets, are still pre- 
served the goblet, table, and gloves, presented by 
Charles II. The lord of this manor presents two drakes 
before the sovereign who may be dining in Jersey. 

Descending along a fine dingle, we open the wide 
bold bay of Boullay, the landing-place of Strozzi, the 
invader, in 1549. The panorama, enlivened by its beacon 
and its pier, is almost as beautiful as that of St. Bre- 
lade's, and it is belted by very splendid cliffs and rocks 
of thallite, greenstone, and porphyry. 

Near Le Nez du Guet are the Koman mound works 
of La Petite Gcesare. 

And now opens the little bay, Havre de Roselle, a 
beautiful rocky basin, bounded by Le Nez du Guet and 
Le Couperose, and spotted with three rocklets, and pos- 
sessing a barrack. A fine rocky dingle, between lofty 
cliffs and fringed with wood, runs up into the land 
towards a Druidical Poquelaye above Le Couperose and 
La Coupe and the bay of Fliquet, with its tower. The 
road from Eoselle to Gourey is scooped in the shore rock. 
Round the point of Verclut opens the bay of St. Cathe- 
rine with its insular horns of rock, and one crowned by 
the tower of Archirondel. Then there is St. Geoffrey's 
rock, from which in the olden time criminals were 
thrown into the sea. Eoselle Manor and the ville of 
St. Martin's lie on the high ground. 

Approaching Gourey, we stumbled on two most in- 
teresting bits of antiquity. On the hill near the coast 



52 



JERSEY. 



is a very fine Poquelaye in a rough field near the warren. 
An oval of twenty-one stones — fourteen within, in two 
rows, supporting three large horizontals, one fifteen feet 
long and ten and a half broad, and weighing eighty tons. 




Near the Pare de la belle Fontaine a very quaint old 
house stands in an orchard. Its turret staircase, La 
Tourelle, is especially curious, but we cannot find it 
described. 

And here below us on a shallow bay is the quaint 
little town of Gourey, the third ville of importance ; its 
church perched on the brow — large dark blocks lying 
around its little haven — one, l'Ecquiercriere, standing 
out the most eastern point of the islet. Above all, the 
magnificent, though now dismantled fortress of Mount 
Orgueil is towering aloft on its rock, fully illustrating 




JERSEY. 53 

its proud title. It is a perfect subject for the pencil, 
and is replete with historical associations. It was an 
especial object with King John. In the reigns of Henry 
VI. and Edward IV. the Count de Maulevrier seized 
Mount Orgueil and half Jersey for Henry, while Carteret 
of Grosnez, Seigneur of St. Ouen, held the rest for 
Edward. In its dungeon were imprisoned by De Car- 
teret the two Bandinels ; one, in trying to escape, was 
killed on the rocks ; the other went mad. It was the 
prison of Prynne, who here wrote his thoughts and 
Bhymes on the castle, which he dedicated to — 
" Sweet Mistress Douce, fair Margaret, 
Prime flower of the house of Carteret." 

As we mount the immense flight of steps, we come on 
the door through which Charles II. passed to the cliffs 
where the boat was moored that wafted him to Erance. 
He had fled hither to Jersey from St. Mary's in Scilly, 
as more remotely secure. Near this is the crypt — one 
of the most eccentric bits of antique masonry which we 
have seen — and opposite is the court in which was dis- 
covered the effigy of the Virgin Mary ; and onwards 
yawns the tower dungeon deep and dark. There are 
Eoman bits of masonry still in the walls. Near the gate 
are stone benches, once the seat of judges, and close by 
beams for the suspension of those whom they condemned. 
Erom the keep the Cathedral of Coutances is distinct in 
a clear atmosphere. 

On the rocky beach of Grouville bay, a profusion of 
vraich is often deposited. The sand hillocks are covered 
by long grass, and the eryngo here blooms beautifully. 
The oyster bank, for which Gourey is famous, is spread 



54 JERSEY. 

two miles off the bay. The rocky ledge of sienite 
which underlies the schist of all this south-east point 
fringes the whole south-eastern angle, and is defended 
by a formal range of martellos — La Roque at the 
point, and Seymour tower stands in the midst of the 
waves. 

And near La Roque, or Rocbert, is the Rock of the 
Hag, and this is the legend of the rock : — 

There was a very beautiful Madeleine and there was 
a young fisher named Hubert, who loved her ; but he 
was inveigled by the witches, and charmed into aversion 
to her. The heroine in despair, with a cross in her 
hand, incurred the perils of storm and billows to save 
him from these spells, and as a memento of her happy 
success, there is the Point du Pas, the " footstep of the 
virgin," to this day. 

Then there is another large rock, once a stumbling- 
block of contention between St. Magloire and the Druids. 
The priests engaged the Devil to roll a block from the 
shore to proselyte the people; but when they tried to 
roll it back again, St. Magloire laid his holy book on it 
and it was immovable ; he then set the cross on the 
rock, and the demon fled, the Druids succumbed, and 
the immortal safety of the people was insured. 

And these rocks may be discovered if one will, and 
pebbles and shells may be gathered, and we may bathe 
at the favourite dipping-place of Portague, or we may 
ramble to the nice little church of Grouville, dated 
1312. 

But we must not overlook the bit of antiquity about 
midway between Gourey and St. Helier's— the Prince's 



JERSEY. 55 

Tower, La Tour d'Auvergne, or La Hogue hie — Hogue, 
mound, or monument — that crowns a mount on the most 




elevated brow in the islet. It was built on the site of 
an ancient chapel, on the model of the Sepulchre at 
Jerusalem, and was enlarged by Mabon, Dean of Jersey, 
about 1750, who, it is said, worked miracles under the 
Virgin. One of its lords was the Prince de Bouillon, 
an English admiral ■ but the legend of De Hambie, as 
deep as it is obscure, is the illustrative charm of La 
Hogue. This is the tale in brief : — The servant of this 
De Hambie murdered his master and married the widow, 
who, stung by remorse, erected this tower, visible from 
her chateau at Coutances, to the memory of her dis- 
honoured, lord. Another record refers the death of De 
Hambie to the poisonous breath of a dragon which he 
slew; but as even the Livre Noir of Coutances leaves 
the matter undecided, we presume not to fathom the 
secret. 

A blind boy is our guide, who from habit points out 
correctly the very richly- wooded panorama from the 
LofC. 



56 JERSEY. 

summit. The islet resembles one expanded grove, spire 
and turret peeping up just where the imagination of a 
consummate artist would have placed it. 

And so we may wander back to St. Helier's by the 
elegant ville of St. Saviour's, the living of the Dean of 
Jersey, and the largest church in the islet ; among richly 
cultivated grounds and gardens teeming with myrtles 
and verbenas and fuchsias and amarillidae, or we may 
wander yet further afield amidst yet more beautiful 
nature — lanes fringed with blushing hedges, and knolls 
of woody luxuriance, and banks and meadows gemmed 
with floral wildings, and here and there a blossom most 
rare in England; and we may perchance meet little 
groups of juveniles on their way to drink warm milk at 
a dairy farm, and all this at an equable temperature 
between 50° and 60°, purified by the occasional sprink- 
ling of a genial summer shower. 



THE END. 



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